sol-mint-utils

Details

**Severity:** Critical

**Affected versions:** `= 0.9.1`

## Source: amazon-inspector (2940bc600ade9f91afdc44ccc04cdab589d276b0504b3f12ffb4a4e827920bd9)
The gem ships a native-extension stub (extconf.rb) that `gem install` executes automatically, but no C/C++ sources accompany it and lib/sol_mint_utils.rb is an inert stub (defines VERSION and returns 'ok'). The README advertises an unrelated package name (`bitcoin-rpc-lite`), confirming the gem's declared purpose is a cover. extconf.rb base64-decodes a Ruby payload and eval's it inside a forked/detached process; the decoded payload opens a TCPSocket to the hardcoded host 45.138.12.177 on port 8089 and bridges a /bin/sh session over the socket via IO.popen and IO.copy_stream, granting the operator an interactive reverse shell on the installer's machine. Execution is gated by anti-analysis checks: CI environment variables, hostname patterns (uvm/firecracker/sandbox/vagrant), generated usernames, analysis working directories (/opt/rubygems, /tmp, /workspace), and short /proc/uptime values all suppress the payload, which fires only when developer artifacts such as ~/.ssh, ~/.gitconfig, and ~/.gem/credentials are present on the host.

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Credit: [OpenSSF](https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages) ([source](https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/ff41f6680a0ebbef2268cdb5daf253d4b400cb05/osv/malicious/rubygems/sol-mint-utils/MAL-2026-17795.json))

**References:**
- https://github.com/ossf/malicious-packages/blob/ff41f6680a0ebbef2268cdb5daf253d4b400cb05/osv/malicious/rubygems/sol-mint-utils/MAL-2026-17795.json
- https://rubygems.org/gems/sol-mint-utils/versions/0.9.1
- https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-3xwh-c3gj-3f29

Compromised versions (1)

• = 0.9.1

Any computer that installed or ran a compromised version should be considered fully compromised. Rotate every secret on that machine from a clean environment.